


Song of the Grey Wolf

by rawrkinjd



Series: Song of the Grey Wolf [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Background Relationships, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29093004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rawrkinjd/pseuds/rawrkinjd
Summary: This is a compilation of Vesemir shorts that aren't quite long enough for their own post.
Relationships: Eskel & Vesemir (The Witcher), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Vesemir, Jaskier | Dandelion & Vesemir, Lambert & Vesemir (The Witcher)
Series: Song of the Grey Wolf [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134503
Comments: 40
Kudos: 109





	1. Nightmares of Old Wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even old wolves have nightmares.

The roof caved in after a particularly bad snowstorm. Vesemir should’ve fixed it sooner, but there were so many other parts of the castle falling around his ears, that his own bedroom seemed to fall to the bottom of the list. As Eskel helped him pick through the snow and debris, Vesemir grumbled. “Least I wasn’t in bed at the time.”

However, this meant he now had to move into the same tower as his pups. There were many reasons this was a bad idea. Firstly, his keen hearing picked up Eskel’s low moans as his bard worked him over, often joined by Geralt because the damned songbird had two hands, didn’t he? And, if Vesemir was honest, you didn’t need Witcher hearing to pick up Lambert’s gasps and moans of, “harder, Aiden!” And, Vesemir’s personal favourite, a stuttered, “squeeze tighter, fuck, fuck, I’m—.” He loved his pups. They deserved their privacy.

Unfortunately, the other towers were derelict and in desperate need of maintenance, so Eskel helped him move his belongings into the one remaining spare room. The man he thought of as his ‘eldest’ son smiled wryly. “I’ll—uh, I’ll tell the others to keep it down this winter.” 

“I’ve got earplugs,” Vesemir grumbled and cast Eskel a knowing smirk. Despite his kind, empathetic nature, Eskel hadn’t worked out the real reason Vesemir kept his distance. Gods, Kaer Morhen used to be filled with teenagers and highly strung Witchers, Vesemir had heard it all before. No. The real reason he stayed away from his pups during the winter was because of the nightmares.

Most nights he woke up shouting, sheened in sweat, and gasping for air. They didn’t really have rhyme or pattern. Sometimes he dreamed about the boys on the Trials; Eskel and Geralt particularly, because they had been _his boys._ Watching them scream, and vomit, and bleed. Being unable to comfort them because _that’s not what Witchers did_. He could still hear them begging for mercy, pleading with the mages to make it stop.

Sometimes he dreamed about the Purges. About climbing the Witcher’s Trail that fateful day and watching black smoke block out the sunlight. His mind recalled the images of charred corpses in the courtyard, of finding Barmin, his mentor, cut to pieces, of finding Rennes, still clinging onto life, bleeding out in the courtyard. Vesemir held him until the end. The Leader of the School of Wolf had looked truly terrified in his last moments, blood bubbling over his lips, hands grasping Vesemir’s gambeson – “I’m sorry, I tried, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” – weakly as he finally succumbed.

The basements had been the worst. Filled with dead mages and zealots alike. The imbeciles had decided to light bonfires inside the keep and had choked themselves to death on the smoke. He remembered falling to his knees in the main hall surrounded by the small, fragile bodies of new initiates and screaming in agony.

He remembered a figure, cloaked and broad, appearing in the doorway. 

He remembered strong hands pulling him from the floor and holding him tightly.

He remembered that same man building the pyres and dragging each body to them.

He remembered feeling paralysed with grief, unable to help even though he knew he should. He had to.

He remembered finding the man – the boy, _his boy_ – kneeling by some of his friends, too shocked, too exhausted, to cry at first. 

He remembered two more of his boys showing up. His feral child first, followed by his White Wolf. By the time they appeared, most of the work had been done.

He remembered their horror, their agony, and then their rage.

Sometimes his mind gave him a reprieve and he dreamed of monsters, wraiths, and horrors of the Path, but they never woke him screaming. They never chilled him to the core; never left him breathless with sorrow; never made him shout names into the cold darkness, begging for them to return, pleading for destiny to reverse its cruel judgment. 

The first night in his new quarters was one of _those_ nights. Vesemir’s body reclined in his new bed, salvaged from the equipment store in the old dormitory, but his mind traveled back to a leveled courtyard crowded with charred corpses; to Rennes’ blood-soaked face begging his forgiveness. His brother. _His family._

Vesemir screamed and begged in the empty room. The tears trailed down his face as he thrashed beneath the furs.

“Vesemir.”

_What?_

“Vesemir, wake up. It’s just a dream. Come back.”

Eskel’s eyes—a deep, honey-rich amber—awaited him when he opened his own. One strong hand gripped his bicep, while the other pried his fingers from the blankets. The man. The man that had dragged forty students and over a dozen instructors to their funeral pyres, his face smeared in soot and ash, cheeks stained with tears of grief. _Eskel._

“You’re alright, old man,” Eskel yanked him up, forced him to lean against his broad shoulder. “You’re alright.” 

“Eskel, I—,” Vesemir started, seeking the solid, officious persona he always cultivated before his boys, but it remained elusive. “This is… shameful. I’m fine, honestly—go back to bed, boy.”

“You learned to run from what you feel, and that’s why you have nightmares. To deny is to invite madness. To accept is to control.” Eskel murmured. 

Vesemir squinted. “Who—?”

“Barmin, circa 1050; Vesemir, circa 1160,” Eskel paused, and then his lips curled into that big, unique grin that only his loved ones ever got to admire. “Eskel, 1265.”

Vesemir chuckled; low, rumbling, and slipped an arm around Eskel’s shoulders. “Never has a wiser wolf walked the Continent.”

“Hmm,” Eskel considered the deep shadows cast by the full moon, and then shuffled onto the bed, shoving Vesemir over in much the same way he used to when he really _was_ a pup; he kicked his legs up and tucked his hands behind his head with a quiet sigh.

“Won’t your bard get cold?”

Eskel smirked. “He can warm himself with one Witcher tonight,” his eyes slid closed. “I’m on guard duty.”

Vesemir bedded back down next to his son, chucking a blanket across his broad chest. The wolf slipped easily back into slumber; his dreams guarded by a pair of amber eyes that blazed in the darkness.


	2. Jaskier's Body Butter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier has had enough of these damned wolves eating his beauty products. Vesemir is the worst culprit.

“Geralt! Geralt!” Jaskier squawked as he stomped up through the halls. One hand pinned the towel wrapping his torso closed to his chest, while the other pointed a scrubbing brush like a longsword before him. He stormed his way into the grand hall, brushing his sopping brunet hair from his face. “I’ve had it. I’ve had enough!” 

Three pairs of eyes looked up from their game of cards, and then two turned towards Geralt as he blinked in confusion. “Why are you—?”

“My oils, my soaps, my butters, they’ve _consumed_ them all,” Jaskier screeched, brush brandished accusingly in Lambert and Eskel’s direction.

“We share everything, Jaskier, I’m sure there are other soaps you can use,” Geralt turned his cards over when he saw Lambert trying to side-eye his hand.

“No, no,” Jaskier seethed, blue eyes narrowed as a small puddle of water gathered around his feet; he hadn’t even paused to dry properly despite the chill of the keep. “If they’d used them— _washed_ with them—then not only would they smell less like the unsightly end of a donkey,” he glared at them with all the haughty disdain his upbringing provided, “I really wouldn’t mind. _No_ , when I say consume, my snowy-furred friend, I mean consume. Ingest. Munch. _Guzzle._ ”

Geralt looked at him in blank confusion.

“Geralt, they’re eating my hygiene products!” Jaskier hit a new octave. Lambert and Eskel hid their smirks behind their hands, and Geralt narrowed his eyes on them.

“Is—are you eating his soap—?”

“Well, in our defence,” Lambert waved a dismissive hand. “They smell like food. If you don’t want it ate, don’t call it butter.”

“Mm. That oil went well with my porridge, smelled and tasted like strawberries,” Eskel mumbled, swiping a card up and then sighing heavily through his nose when it destroyed his planned play. He glanced up with those rich amber eyes and then grinned. “He’s cute when he’s mad.” 

“I’ll give you _cute_ , you soap-scoffing oaf,” Jaskier waved his brush menacingly. 

“Jaskier,” Geralt lifted his hands. “We’re sorry. They’re sorry. It won’t happen again,” he kicked both the others under the table, “will it?” 

“No,” said a chorus of two.

Jaskier, who wasn’t one to seize onto anger for too long before his Witchers, huffed. “Well, see that it doesn’t.”

He turned to head back towards the path, and then he smelled it. Vanilla, with notes of expensive cocoa and almonds. His body butter. A furious gaze turned to the nearest doorway and narrowed in upon Vesemir, who stood with a shoulder up against the frame. In one hand he held a spoon heaped with a mousse-like substance, and in the other sat one of Jaskier’s expensive body butters.

Jaskier, incensed, stormed over and snatched the pot. He waved the brush threateningly in Vesemir’s face, jaw clenched, vein-popping in his temple, and then turned to storm back into the corridors. He mumbled a quiet litany of wordy oaths and flowery threats that faded in his wake. 

Vesemir, who had been rather enjoying the expensive yoghurt, looked at the other three in confusion. “What’s chewin’ his knackers?”

“You were eating his bollock fungal cream,” Lambert replied, and then laughed when his mentor turned green and fled into the kitchen.

“You’re such an ass,” Eskel chuckled, and then folded his hand. “And a cheat. Pass me the ale.”


End file.
